EDIT: ANET staff publicly representing company should be held to their own standards

[fizzypetal.7936]

What a sad state of affairs. Freedom of speech - just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And if you do post or say something contentious, ya gotta be prepared for the consequences.

I've read that JPs career is littered with similarly public incidents and that she did lose a previous job because of said behaviour. One would think ArenaNet did their due diligence before hiring JP, so knew about her social media history.

I'd like to think that ArenaNet did give her guidance regarding her social media presence. I'd also like to think ArenaNet had a discussion with her after her ill conceived Tweet regarding the death of TotalBiscuit. Personal account or not, the tweet from a well known brand's employee would have been awful for TotalBiscuit's friends and family to have read.

Another point to consider - in addition to her controversial social media posts, perhaps colleagues found her difficult to work with. If she can tweet such vitriol towards customers, it is easy to surmise that she might have shown her colleagues the same disrespect. Perhaps this latest outburst was the final straw for ArenaNet and it was time to move her on - to restore harmony within the dev team at Anet and attempt to repair the damage done to customer engagement.

From a purely PR pov, I can see that JP would have been a nightmare. Women like her, who use the gender card too quickly and inappropriately and with such venom attached to it, make it harder for the rest of us women to be treated fairly.

I don't like to see anyone lose their job - but quite possibly ArenaNet gave her numerous chances...the first one being the moment they hired her.

[Zushada.6108]

Please read the following with an open mind and open heart. I live in a different country where things work differently. I had refrained from commenting because I am the unpopular opinon. However, I had to post because I think my thoughts actually give perspective.

There seems to be a trend in corporate North America that is deeply disturbing. It is called the "Corporate Gag Order" and it entails public and private corporations issuing "Social Media policies" that assume they have control over your life when you are not at work. They don't and they shouldn't be dictating what we should be speaking out against and/or what we do in our personal lives. And they shouldn't have control over the commentary of an off-duty developer who was using her own private twitter. Yes, there has to be balance and their can't be illegal or hate related content but when is the corporation found guilty for the beliefs and actions of a staff member who is off duty -- never? How many terrible people have worked in corporations across the world and none of the corporations have been tried and convicted for their employee's personal life. So ask yourself why you think staff are responsible to a corporation when they are off-duty? We must also ask ourselves who has any right to decide how another human lives or speaks and to what platform they use? Was she punchy and irrational? Yes, was it inappropriate? Yes. Did she deserve to get fired? No, not at all.

All of the people who are happy these two got fired, really need to pause and reflect here. Consider it like this. What if Jessica had posted something about the Christian Bible and someone disagreed and she lashed out. Would you all have been freaking out for a difference of opinion and crummy online etiquette and calling for her dismissal? Or what if she wrote something the gaming community doesn't care about like Led Zepplin lyrics and the same series of events unfolded? Would you react and call for dismissal? Not likely. This was, essentially the modern day public lynching of Jessica Price and I am sorry if people find this expression disrespectful but Anet used the feedback from third party social media (the same media that is available publicly to people who have no clue about this game) and knee jerked her and Peter out the door. This, in my opinion, was highly inappropriate and not reflective of the positive employment environment Anet likes PR to front. At worst, she should have been called into discuss what happened and why she was so deeply frustrated. Perhaps counselling needed to be offered and a direct apology to the person involved -- but she does not owe the community an apology for being herself in her off hours.

Let me be clear in my thoughts here; the community made this happen and it is the first time I have ever been so utterly dismayed by this game's community. Sure it shows the power of multiple voices, but it most certainly didn't show the power of those voices for good. In an interview she indicated she got what I call "dad shamed" about ruining a good situation. Here is the thing, she didn't. The community and Anet did. The community decided to look at her PERSONAL twitter feed and use every single tweet they could find to make a lynching case against her and Anet bought in to the idea like puppies after a biscuit.

With regards to Peter Fries; he did NOT deserve to be fired! That was just wrongful dismissal (as they say in my country). Ok perhaps he shouldn't have dawned the beer induced super-hero cape and tried to mitigate a deteriorating situation -- but on the other hand, why can't he? Why does the community and Anet care that he actually spoke the truth respectfully. In my opinion, Anet owes him a thank you for turning the focus off of JP for a while and putting it on someone else. He took the fall for being a good co-worker. He demonstrated what being on a team truly means and in my opinion, he deserved kudos rather than firing.

The community caused 2 people to lose their livelihoods -- the community took it upon themselves to call for the firing of Jessica without realising the ramifications for their actions. Because of this, two people lost benefits, they will lose savings and they will struggle financially moving forward and Anet did a huge disservice to their community by looking at Peter and saying essentially, "you understand, it's all business and someone has to take the fall."

So the next time someone wants to post a hate thread about an Anet employee consider the following:

• Look at the origins of the company and where the founders came from. There examples of when they did not represent their own company all that well in social media. (and I don't mean that rudely, I just mean we all foot in mouth)
• Consider that there is a human at the other side of the computer and the impact of your reactions is real and will be felt for years.
• Consider that privacy should be respected and a lot of issues and arguments would be mitigated if someone simply asked "are you just sharing your own thoughts or are you looking for feedback/discussion.

• As i said on the first thread that got locked -- this wasn't the community's business to get involved in, and it was best left alone. The real discussion is the lack of segregation between personal and corporate communications and corporate policies dictating far too much about personal communications (think church and state here). In this case, it was personal communications that the community made corporate and the outcome has been disastrous for all parties involved.

Cheers

[Forum Moderator.4372]

As there is already a thread discussing this subject, we are going to go ahead and close this one. Please feel free to join the current discussion at https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/46258/gw-2-devs-playerbase-twitter-discussion but please be sure to keep your comments constructive and follow the forum guidelines!